On Thursday, President Donald Trump shared a meme on Truth Social claiming that the Democratic Party is the party of “Satan.”
The post featured images of prominent Democratic members of Congress, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (New York), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (California), and others. Superimposed on the images are the words “THE PARTY OF HATE, EVIL, AND SATAN.”
The post also included the words, “The Democratic Party is Dead!” and “Their only message for America is to hate Trump!”
The social media post comes as tensions between Republicans and Democrats in Congress are high, with the parties currently negotiating a continuing resolution bill to end the government shutdown. Democrats are demanding that the bill restore funding for programs ensuring that low-income Americans and those who receive tax credits for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) can continue having access to health care.
Trump has made several other posts attacking Democrats during the shutdown. One such post featured a racist video, made with AI technology, of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) wearing a sombrero and donning a fake mustache — a reference to the false, race-baiting Republican talking point that Democrats are keeping the government shut down to force legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to access federal health funds and programs.
Trump’s posts come just weeks after he and several other GOP voices demanded that Democrats tone down their supposedly hateful rhetoric in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. Trump — who has frequently peddled violent rhetoric and incited violence against against his political opponents — has used the killing to escalate his crackdown on dissent and people with left-leaning viewpoints, with him and his allies baselessly alleging that the “radical left” is “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”
Indeed, Trump signed an executive order last month designating “antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization, despite lacking the legal framework to do so. And last week, he told U.S. military generals to prepare to target “the enemy within,” a term he’s previously used to refer to progressives and people with left-leaning views.
Meanwhile, studies have repeatedly showcased that the vast majority of politically motivated violence in the U.S. involves people with right-wing views. One such study, conducted by authors at The Conversation, demonstrated that “Right-wing extremist violence has been deadlier than left-wing violence in recent years.”
“Based on government and independent analyses, right-wing extremist violence has been responsible for the overwhelming majority of fatalities, amounting to approximately 75 percent to 80 percent of U.S. domestic terrorism deaths since 2001,” the study’s authors wrote.
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